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Singular Concord in Ottawa Valley English

Shayna Gardiner

Undergraduate Linguistics Thesis

Queen’s University

April 22, 2011

Abstract

This paper investigates a syntactic phenomenon known as singular concord as it

exists in the dialect known as Ottawa Valley English. Ottawa Valley English singular

concord is compared and contrasted with a similar agreement phenomenon in Arabic, and

with singular concord as it exists in Belfast English. The result is a description of the

phenomenon in Ottawa Valley English, including productivity and restrictions, and an

account and analysis of the phenomenon in that dialect, along with insights into the singular

concord family of phenomena overall.

1. Introduction

This paper investigates a dialect of Canadian English known as Ottawa Valley

English (henceforth OVE). This dialect exists separately from Standard Canadian English

(henceforth SCE) in the Ottawa Valley, a region of Ontario and Quebec that extends from

the convergence of the St Lawrence River and the Ottawa River at Lac Les Deux

Montagnes, near Montreal, and continues northwest through Algonquin Park (Pringle &

Padolsky, 1983). Existing work on OVE focuses on the dialect’s lexicon and phonology

(Pringle & Padolsky, 1983; Woods, 1979), but this paper aims to begin research into the

dialect’s morphosyntax. It will focus specifically on a detailed account and analysis of a

single phenomenon, which will henceforth be referred to as singular concord, since it is

quite similar to various other phenomena of the same name in other dialects of English and

languages other than English (Bobaljik & Carnie, 1996; Henry, 1995; Mohammad, 1989).

The account will be laid out as follows: section 2 will discuss singular concord in general,

section 3 will describe the singular concord phenomenon in detail as it occurs in OVE,

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section 4 will look at analyses and accounts of singular concord in other languages, and

section 5 will be an analysis and account of OVE singular concord, followed by

conclusions and suggestions for further research.

OVE singular concord will be seen to be case-related, and having to do with a

different mechanism for case-licensing than standard agreement. It will also be seen to be

different from other varieties of English singular concord, suggesting that there is not one,

canonical singular concord that exists across languages and dialects, but rather the

phenomenon make take on many different forms depending on the language.

1.2 Methodology

In order to obtain data for this research, I used the Joan Finnigan fonds in the

Queen’s University archives. Included in these files are transcripts and audio files of

interviews conducted by Finnigan with residents of the Ottawa Valley, native speakers of

OVE. Her research was originally conducted for her many novels, which are a collection

of folktales and oral histories of the Ottawa Valley, including Some of the Stories I Told

You Were True, Legends and Lies, and Tallying the Tales of the Old-Timers. These files

are from 1977-1993.

The files found in the Joan Finnigan fonds are ideal for my research; given that

Finnigan was from the Ottawa Valley herself, her informants were very familiar with her

and were less likely to switch their speech into a more formal register when recounting

their stories. Since the stories themselves are old folktales, the informants were unlikely to

switch into SCE during the interviews, and because the speakers are from an older

generation, they are more likely to have retained all the features that existed in OVE prior

to any standardization that may have happened in recent years due to greater urbanization,

any prestige attributed to urban dialects, and the availability of internet websites, television,

and radio programs in more standard dialects. Thus, this archival data is ideal for collecting

information about OVE.

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In addition to the information from the Queen’s Archives, I also obtained

information and data from present-day native speakers of OVE, in order to confirm or deny

results obtained from the archival data. This provided a more detailed picture of the

morphosyntactic anomalies I came across by allowing me to see which were consistent

within the dialect and which were merely the result of idiolect differences. In addition,

consulting with living native speakers allowed for flexibility that archival data could not:

when the need arose to test hypotheses about the nature of certain anomalies, it was easy to

do so by proposing specific constructions suited to a particular need, rather than being

limited to the sentences that existed in the Finnigan fonds. Thus, in consort, these two

methods of data collection were ideal for my research.

2. Singular Concord

Singular concord is a syntactic phenomenon that occurs in a variety of English

dialects. It involves non-standard verbal agreement, specifically a tensed verb that appears

to have 3sg agreement with a subject that is not 3sg. For example (Henry, 1995):

Belfast English

1. The eggs is cracked. ‘The eggs are cracked.’

In OVE it is also thus. For example:

Ottawa Valley English

2. The plates is in the cupboard. ‘The plates are in the cupboard.’1

OVE singular concord may only occur with subjects that are not overtly marked for

nominative, or overtly marked for singular. It occurs only with tensed forms of be.

1 It should be noted that the standard agreement forms in the gloss are completely acceptable in OVE and are used interchangeably with the singular concord forms. It is unclear as to whether the standard agreement forms are OVE or simply a result of the speaker switching into SCE.

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2.1 Origins of Singular Concord

This phenomenon appears to have come into English dialects as a result of language

contact with the Celtic languages (Hickey, 2007; Bobaljik & Carnie, 1996). The Celtic

languages show two different types of verb agreement, one involving full agreement (or

concord) and the other involving less than full agreement, and each of these is associated

with a different word order. Full agreement occurs with an SVO word order, while less

than full agreement occurs with a VSO word order (Bobaljik & Carnie, 1996). This second

form of agreement came into English dialects as variations of the singular concord

phenomenon, though singular concord as it exists in English dialects today has become its

own phenomenon, separate from the VSO agreement seen in Celtic languages. (Bobaljik &

Carnie, 1996; Hickey, 2007; Millar, 2007). While singular concord has been documented

previously in other dialects, such as Belfast English (Henry, 1995), it does not exist in SCE.

This phenomenon is optional in OVE, and its origins can be traced back to dialects of

English, such as Belfast English (henceforth BE), that were prevalent in the home regions

of the Ottawa Valley’s first immigrants, namely Ireland, Scotland, and other areas with

sustained contact between English speakers and Celtic language speakers (Pringle &

Padolsky, 1983).

To account for the existence of singular concord in OVE, we must look at the

settlement patterns of the Ottawa Valley itself. According to Woods (1979), the Ottawa

Valley’s first (and the vast majority of later) English-speaking inhabitants were Irish and

Scottish immigrants. This is very clearly evidenced by place names in the Valley:

Glengarry, Lanark, Renfrew, Killaloe, Arnprior, Mayo and Antrim are just a few, all named

after places in Ireland and Scotland (Pringle & Padolsky, 1983). Pringle and Padolsky note

in their (1983) phonological and lexical survey of OVE that the dialect bears many

similarities in terms of phonology and lexicon to those of its Scottish and Irish progenitors,

suggesting that the syntax of these dialects has also left its mark on OVE. And indeed,

since singular concord in BE bears such a resemblance to the singular concord that exists in

OVE, it is likely that this particular phenomenon comes from an older version of BE itself,

or from another Irish or Scottish dialect that also includes a phenomenon of this nature.

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This is supported by the fact that singular concord in BE occurs with any verb (Henry,

1995), while in OVE singular concord only occurs with be. There is also evidence that

various types of singular concord are common across most modern regional Irish dialects of

English (Hickey, 2007). It has also been found to be very common in regional Scottish

varieties of English (Hickey, 2007). So, the Scottish and Irish settlers of the Ottawa Valley

could easily have brought with them the singular concord phenomenon.

Supporting this idea further is evidence that singular concord existed in older

varieties of English in areas with sustained contact with Celtic peoples: Godfrey and

Tagliamonte found that singular concord is a conservative feature of southern dialect

regions in Britain, such as Devon (Godfrey & Tagliamonte, 1999):

Devon English

3. And the animals looks down. ‘And the animals look down.’

And the phenomenon has been found in the far north of England as well, and Pietsch calls

attention to the fact that in northern dialects of Old English there are many examples of

singular concord (Pietsch, 2005):

Old English 4. On þæm selfan hrægle wæs eac awriten þa naman ðara twelf heahfædra. On that same garment was also written the names of the twelve patriarchs. ‘On that same garment were also written the names of the twelve patriarchs.’

These facts are useful in both a Scottish and Irish context, given that Scottish

English was brought about mostly thanks to varieties of Northern English (Millar, 2007),

and the southernmost regions of England are where Ireland got its first varieties of English

(Hickey, 2007). Singular concord is also attested in the dialect of Scottish English currently

spoken by the many Scottish immigrants who settled in Ulster, Northern Ireland, around the

same time that the various dialects of British English were being introduced to the Irish

Gaelic-speaking population (Montgomery, 2006):

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Ulster English

5. Me and them’s crakkin. ‘They and I are chatting.’

The phenomenon is also attested in Celtic languages, so it is possible that these Old

English dialects as well as Irish English and Scottish English developed singular concord as

a result of language contact (Hickey, 2007). In Roberts and Borsley (1996), Bobaljik and

Carnie propose that while Irish Gaelic is a verb raising language it does not require that the

subject NP move to the SPEC/AGRSP, but rather it may remain in SPEC/Tense, and the

verb also is not required to raise all the way to AGRS. While Irish word order is not always

the same as English, this instance of optional lack of raising, which allows the verb to

remain in Tense and the subject to remain in SPEC/Tense, appears quite similar to the

structure behind the BE phenomenon of singular concord (Henry, 1995), as well as singular

concord in OVE to be discussed in later sections. It has also been noted that this optional

structure, wherein the verb remains in SPEC/Tense, results in a sentence with less than full

verb agreement, just like singular concord in English dialects (Bobaljik & Carnie, 1996;

Roberts, 2007). Similarly, Klemola (2000) suggests that singular concord comes from

contact with P-Celtic languages, related to present-day Welsh due to the fact that, in

modern Welsh, there is a concord system involving non-agreement with full NPs but

agreement with personal pronouns. These types of agreement patterns can be found in

other modern Celtic languages as well (Bobaljik & Carnie, 1996; Hickey, 2007; Roberts,

2007).

Thus it is most likely that OVE singular concord came into being as a result of the

Ottawa Valley’s first and foremost settlers being from Scotland and Ireland, where various

forms of singular concord are prevalent across regional English dialects, and beyond that

from contact with singular concord as it exists in Celtic languages.

3. Singular Concord in OVE

Its origins clarified, it is now possible to discuss the nature of singular concord

itself, as it occurs in OVE. This will be discussed in three parts: productivity, subject

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restrictions, and ordering restrictions. The first section will illustrate the environment in

which singular concord can occur in OVE, and the second two will describe the restrictions

that exist with the phenomenon. OVE singular concord will be seen to be case-related, and

it will also be made clear that OVE singular concord stands out from many other English

varieties of singular concord in that it may only occur with be, while in other dialects it is

generally all lexical verbs that are included (Henry, 1995; Hickey, 2007).

3.1 Productivity

Special characteristics to note about the productivity of OVE singular concord are

that it occurs only with finite be, is productive across all tense and uses of finite be, and can

occur with polar and wh-questions and in both active and passive voice.

3.1.1 3sg Verb

Singular concord in OVE patterns with singular concord in other dialects in that the

verb is always in what appears to be third person singular agreement. This is illustrated in

the examples below.

6. a. The plates is in the cupboard. ‘The plates are in the cupboard.’ b. You boys is getting rowdy.

‘You boys are getting rowdy.’ c. Us farmers is hard-working. ‘We farmers are hard-working.’ d. The kids was sick today. ‘The kids were sick today.’ e. You was going into the garden, I thought. ‘You were going into the garden, I thought.’

Singular concord in OVE not some kind of anti-agreement; it is a specialized usage of the

3rd person singular form of the verb. Thus we never find plural verb (are) mismatches.

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Thatis,unlessthetensedverboccursinits3rdpersonsingularagreementform,

sentenceswheretheverbdoesnotagreewiththesubjectaresystematicallyrejected

asungrammatical.ThusthefollowingexamplesareungrammaticalinOVE:

7. a. *Anna are going to the store. ‘Anna is going to the store.’ b. *I are pretty tired. ‘I’m pretty tired.’ c. *Mary am hungry ‘Mary is hungry.’ d. *You boys am getting rowdy. ‘You boys are getting rowdy.’

3.1.2 Be One of the distinguishing properties of OVE singular concord is that the only verb that participates is be. This is established in the examples below.

8. a. The pies is in the oven. ‘The pies are in the oven.’ b. *Anna and Basil has a new car. ‘Anna and Basil have a new car.’ c. *The children likes movies. ‘The children like movies.’ d. *You and me eats supper. ‘You and I eat supper.’

OVE singular concord is productive across all occurrences of finite be: copular be (9a),

progressive aspect be (9b), periphrastic future be (9c), equative be (9d), and passive be (9e).

9. a. Anna and Beatrice is in the kitchen. ‘Anna and Beatrice are in the kitchen.’ b. The cats is catching mice. ‘The cats are catching mice.’

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c. The kids is going to go swimming later. ‘The kids are going to go swimming later.’ d. Them cows is Holsteins. [As opposed to another kind of cow.] ‘Those cows are Holsteins.’ [As opposed to another kind of cow.] e. The kids was taught by Mrs. Fraser down in Arnprior. ‘The kids were taught by Mrs. Fraser down in Arnprior.’

3.1.3 Tenses

Singular concord in OVE is also productive across tenses, as in the following examples.

10. a. Eva and Dorothy was going to the store. ‘Eva and Dorothy were going to the store.’ b. The crops is good this season. ‘The crops are good this season.’ c. Aaron and Josh is going to drive Eganville in the morning. ‘Aaron and Josh are going to drive to Eganville in the morning.’

3.1.4 Questions

Another distinguishing characteristic of OVE singular concord is that we also see

productivity in constructions where be has undergone head movement to C0. The following

are direct polar questions.

11. a. Is you heading off to the barn? [CP Isi [TP you ti heading off to the barn]]? ‘Are you heading off to the barn?’ b. Was the kids sick today? [CP Wasi [TP the kids ti sick today]]? ‘Were the kids sick today?’

Similarly, the following are OVE singular concord wh-questions.

12. a. Where’s my cookies? Where is my cookies? [CP Wherej’si [IP my cookies ti tj]]? ‘Where are my cookies?’

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b. How’s the kids? How is the kids? [CP Howj’si [IP the kids ti tj]]? ‘How are the kids?’

In summary, OVE singular concord has the following characteristics in terms of

productivity: 1) the verb is always in what appears to be 3sg agreement, 2) OVE singular

concord occurs only with be, but 3) it is quite productive across all occurrences of finite be.

The first quality is in keeping with the characteristics of singular concord in other English

dialects, while the last two are distinguishing features of OVE singular concord

specifically. Now that the productivity of the verb has been specified, the next section of

the description will focus on restrictions on the subject and the order of the sentence.

3.2 Subject Restrictions

In other English dialects, such as BE, singular concord may not occur with overtly

singular subjects, or with any subjects that are overtly marked for nominative (Henry,

1995). In terms of ordering, if the verb is a raising verb, it may not occur when an adverb

is between the subject and the verb (Henry, 1995).

Singular concord in OVE disallows subjects that are overtly marked for nominative

case. It can occur only with subjects that are plural, or the 2sg pronoun. Other subjects are

considered ungrammatical.

3.2.1 Nominative Case Marking

OVE singular concord cannot occur with any subject that is overtly marked for

nominative case, thus the following sentences, with overtly nominative pronouns as

subjects, are ungrammatical.

13. a. *I’s weeding the garden. ‘I’m weeding the garden.’

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b. *We’s hungry. ‘We’re hungry.’ c. *They’s going to the party. ‘They’re going to the party.’ e. *Eric and I is at the cottage. ‘Eric and I are at the cottage.’

By those same restrictions, the following sentences, with subjects that are not marked for

nominative case, are grammatical in OVE.

14. a. Tim and me is milking the cows today. ‘Tim and I are milking the cows today.’ b. Them’s going out for pizza. ‘They’re going out for pizza.’ c. These cows is getting fat. ‘These cows are getting fat.’ d. You said you was going for a run today. ‘You said you were going for a run today.’2

This restriction generalizes to constructions where be has undergone head movement to C0.

Thus the following sentences are ungrammatical.

15. a. *How’s they? ‘How are they?’ b. *Is they sick today? ‘Are they sick today?’

And the following sentences are grammatical.

2 For the 2sg and 2pl pronoun you, it is impossible to differentiate the nominative forms from the other cases. Thus in occurrences of singular concord in OVE, these pronouns are not overtly marked for nominative.

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16. a. Where’s the tools? Where is the tools?

‘Where are the tools?’

b. How’s the cows? How is the cows? ‘How are the cows?’ c. Is the kids sick today? ‘Are the kids sick today?’

3.2.2 1st and 3rd Singular Subjects

It is also impossible for this 3sg singular concord verb form to occur with an

accusative subject in the 3rd or 1st person singular, unless they are part of a larger plural NP.

Thus the following examples are ungrammatical.

17. a. *Him is mowing the lawn. ‘He is mowing the lawn.’ b. *Her is eating supper. ‘She is eating supper.’ c. *Me is in the kitchen. ‘I am in the kitchen.’

And the following examples are grammatical.

18. a. Doug and him’s mowing the lawn. ‘He and Doug are mowing the lawn.’ b. Eva and her is eating supper. ‘She and Eva are eating supper.’ c. Nancy and me is in the kitchen. ‘Nancy and I are in the kitchen.’

So the subject restrictions on singular concord allow only for subjects that are not overtly

marked for nominative case, as well as allowing only plural subjects or the 2sg pronoun.

OVE singular concord also has some ordering restrictions, which will be discussed next.

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3.3 Ordering Restrictions

3.3.1 Adverbs

In instances of regular agreement, adverbials can occur before or after the verb, as

in the following examples.

Regular Agreement

19. a. The cows are surely big.

b. The cows surely are big. c. Mary and Margaret were never angry. d. Mary Margaret never were angry. e. Jim and Kevin are really feeding the cows. f. Jim and Kevin really are feeding the cows.

In OVE singular concord, the adverb cannot occur between the subject and the verb, and so

it may only occur after the verb. Thus the sentences in 15 are ungrammatical.

OVE Singular Concord

20. a. *The cows surely is big. ‘The cows surely are big.’ b. *Mary and Margaret never was angry. ‘Mary and Margaret never were angry.’ c. *Jim and Kevin really is feeding the cows. ‘Jim and Kevin really are feeding the cows.’

And, by the same logic, the sentences below are grammatical.

21. a. The cows is surely big. ‘The cows are surely big.’ b. Mary and Margaret was never angry. ‘Mary and Margaret were never angry.’

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c. Jim and Kevin is really feeding the cows. ‘Jim and Kevin are really feeding the cows.’

In summary, the singular concord form of the verb itself appears to be what is,

under normal circumstances, the form that agrees with a third person singular subject. In

OVE it occurs only with the tense verb be, and is productive across all tenses and all usages

(copula, periphrastic, equative, and locative). It is also productive across all persons that are

not overly marked for nominative, except for 3sg and 1sg pronouns, which can only occur

with singular concord if they are part of a larger NP, indicating that the phenomenon is

case-related. It is also impossible to have singular concord when an adverb appears

between the subject and the verb. These characteristics and restrictions are in effect

whether the sentence is a statement or a question, and whether it is passive or active.

4. Singular Concord & Similar Phenomena in Other Languages

Now that a detailed description of the OVE singular concord phenomenon has been

established, a full account of its nature can be made. As noted previously, singular concord

has been documented in various dialects of English (Henry, 1995; Godfrey & Tagliamonte,

1999; Pietsch, 2005; Hickey, 2007; Millar, 2007), and there also exist similar phenomena in

the Celtic languages (Bobaljik & Carnie, 1996) and in Arabic as well (Mohammad, 1989).

In order to create a full account and analysis for OVE singular concord, it is useful to look

at both an account of singular concord in an English dialect, and an account of a similar

phenomenon in another language. Therefore this section will look at Mohammad’s

analysis of non-standard verbal concord in Arabic (1989) and Henry’s analysis of Belfast

English singular concord (1995).

4.1 Arabic Non-Standard Verbal Concord

Arabic singular concord occurs only in sentences with VSO word order – in cases of

SVO word order, only standard agreement is permissible (Mohammad, 1989). Mohammad

(1989) proposes that this phenomenon is not simply the result of, for example, faulty

agreement, but rather lack of agreement entirely. He does this by way of a configurational

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account that places the subject of singular concord sentences in a different position in the

sentence structure than in standard agreement (Mohammad, 1989).

Mohammad’s (1989) analysis of Arabic is conducted within a Minimalist framework,

so a typical sentence would look like this:

[CP [AGRSP [TP [AGROP [VP]]]]]

In sentences with standard agreement, subject NPs are checked for case by raising to

SPEC/AGRS and objects to SPEC/AGR0. The following sentence shows Arabic standard

agreement (from Mohammad, 1989). Here the subject is in SPEC/AGRSP, where it is

checked for nominative case, and the verb is in VP.

22. l-ʔawlaad-u jaaʔuu. the-boys-NOM came3plMASC [CP [AGRSP the boys [TP [AGR0P [VP [V came]]]]]] ‘The boys came.’

Mohammad proposes something different for Arabic singular concord (1989):

23. jaaʔa l-ʔawlaad-u. came3sgMASC the-boys-NOM [CP [AGRSP PRO [TP [AGR0P [VP [V came [NP the boys]]]]]]

This sentence shows the VSO singular concord agreement. Mohammad hypothesizes that

in Arabic non-standard agreement sentences the subject is not actually in SPEC/AGRSP

after all, but rather it simply stays in VP rather than raising out, and thus cannot copy its

features to AGR (1989). Since the subject does not raise to SPEC/AGRSP, it cannot be

checked for nominative case, this resulting in a lack of agreement between the subject and

the verb, forcing the verb into the default 3sg agreement (Mohammad,1989). Mohammad

then suggests that in Arabic non-standard agreement, the subject position (SPEC/AGRSP) is

filled by a null expletive, as seen in 23. This hypothesis accounts extremely well for the

Arabic singular concord data, explaining the VSO word order as well as the non-standard

subject-verb agreement.

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4.2 Belfast English Singular Concord

Like all English dialects with singular concord, Belfast English displays two types

of agreement: standard agreement and singular concord, but without the difference in word

order seen in Arabic or the Celtic languages. For example, the following is a BE singular

concord sentence (from Henry, 1995):

24. The eggs is cracked. ‘The eggs are cracked.’

And the following is a BE standard agreement sentence (Henry, 1995):

25. The eggs are cracked.

As seen in 24, BE singular concord occurs only with what looks like 3sg verb agreement.

Like in OVE, we do not see any agreement mismatches in BE (Henry, 1995), indicating

that BE singular concord, like OVE, is not some sort of anti-agreement, but rather a

specialized usage of the 3sg verb form. The following sentences are therefore

ungrammatical in BE (Henry, 1995):

26. a. *John and me am going. ‘John and I are going.’ b. *Me and you am supposed to go. ‘You and I are supposed to go.’

And the following sentences are considered grammatical in BE (Henry, 1995):

27. a. John and me is going. ‘John and I are going.’

b. Me and you is supposed to go. ‘You and I are supposed to go.’

BE singular concord is productive across all verb tenses and, unlike OVE singular concord,

across all lexical verbs. Thus the following sentences are possible in BE (Henry, 1995):

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28. a. John and me kicks ourselves. ‘John and I kick ourselves.’ b. The children shouts all the time. ‘The children shout all the time.’ c. These makes no sense. ‘These make no sense.’ d. The students was late. ‘The students were late.’ e. Him and me is going. ‘He and I are going.’

As well, in BE singular concord does not occur with any overtly nominative subjects, so the

following sentences would be considered ungrammatical:

29. a *He and I is going. ‘He and I are going.’ b. *John and he goes away up the road. ‘He and John go away up the road.’

Nor does it occur with any singular pronouns as subjects, even when those pronouns are not

overtly marked for nominative (Henry, 1995). Thus the following sentences would be

considered ungrammatical in BE:

30. a. *Me reads the newspaper every day. ‘I read the newspaper every day.’ b. *Him is going. ‘He is going.’

In keeping with this, the following OVE sentence would also be considered ungrammatical

in BE:

31. You was going into the garden, I thought.

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When BE singular concord occurs with be, a raising verb, it displays the same

adverb ordering restrictions as OVE singular concord in that it is impossible when an

adverb comes between the subject and a (raising) verb (Henry, 1995):

32. *The children really is late. ‘The children really are late.’

But the adverb-verb order is possible in BE singular concord with lexical verbs (from

Henry, 1995):

33. These books probably costs a lot. ‘These books probably cost a lot.’

BE singular concord is also possible in wh-questions like OVE singular concord, but

impossible in polar questions (from Henry, 1995):

34. a. *Is the children tired? ‘Are the children tired?’ b. Where’s my glasses? ‘Where are my glasses?’

Like Mohammad, Henry argues that BE singular concord does not actually involve any

kind of agreement mismatch, but in fact involves a lack of agreement marking entirely, in

that the 3sg verb form in BE singular concord is a default agreement (Henry, 1995). Her

configurational account suggests that this occurs because the subject does not raise into

SPEC/AGRSP and thus cannot copy its features to AGR. Instead, Henry posits that in BE,

Tense can optionally check ‘default’ (i.e. accusative) case, so the subject only has to rise as

far as SPEC/TenseP, which would look like this:

35. The cats is meowing. ‘The cats are meowing.’ [CP [AGRP [TP The catsi [T is [VP ti [V meowing]]]]]]

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This analysis is well-supported by the fact that BE singular concord never occurs with

subjects that are overtly nominative – if the subject never raises to SPEC/AGRSP, then

there is no way it could be checked for nominative case. This works for all lexical verbs, in

all tenses (Henry, 1995). In this instance, the fact that BE singular concord does not occur

with singular pronouns as subjects is considered to be a property of the phenomenon and is

not a result of its syntax or case-checking mechanism (Henry, 1995). The lack of

acceptability of polar questions in BE singular concord is said to be caused by the fact that

wh-questions possess strong enough features in BE to force the movement to C0, while

polar questions do not (Henry, 1995). Henry cites a similar featural weakness in the case

of the adverb restrictions (Henry, 1995).

5. OVE Account and Analysis

At this point, it is time to discuss the ways in which the accounts for Arabic and BE

are or are not able to be extended to account for the facts of OVE singular concord. This

section will discuss Mohammad’s treatment of Arabic, followed by Henry’s treatment of

BE, and will conclude will a final, comprehensive account and analysis of OVE singular

concord.

5.1 OVE Singular Concord and Mohammad’s Treatment of Arabic

OVE singular concord occurs with be in all its usages and tenses, with subjects that

are not overtly nominative, with plural subjects and the 2sg pronoun, in questions, in both

passive and active voice, and cannot occur when an adverb intervenes between the verb and

subject.

If we were to use Mohammad’s treatment of Arabic to explain OVE singular

concord, it would explain the lack of nominative subjects. It is possible to say for OVE that

the subject is not in SPEC/AGRSP: nominative case is checked or assigned by way of

SPEC/head agreement between SPEC/AGRSP, but since singular concord in OVE does not

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occur with a subject in nominative case, it appears that the subject is not in a position for

nominative case to be checked/assigned.

Using Mohammad’s treatment of Arabic non-standard agreement, however, would

not be able to explain OVE singular concord’s adverb and subject restrictions; there is no

reason for any adverb or subject restrictions to apply in the case of non-standard verb

agreement in Arabic.

There is also the problem of word order when applying Mohammad’s treatment of

Arabic agreement to OVE singular concord. Arabic singular concord can only occur with

VSO sentences, and we do see VSO word order in OVE polar questions where singular

concord is present:

36. a. Is you heading off to the barn? [CP Isi [TP you ti heading off to the barn]]? ‘Are you heading off to the barn?’ b. Was the kids sick today? [CP Wasi [TP the kids ti sick today]]? ‘Were the kids sick today?’

However, in OVE, only SVO order is acceptable in singular concord statements:

37. a. *Is the boys eating cupcakes. ‘The boys are eating cupcakes.’ b. The boys is eating cupcakes. ‘The boys are eating cupcakes.’

And while Mohammad’s null expletive postulation is well-supported by the facts of Arabic

non-standard agreement, there is no evidence for null expletives in OVE singular concord,

only overt ones:

38. a. There’s cats in the yard. ‘There are cats in the yard.’

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b. *NP[e]is a cat in the yard. ‘There is a cat in the yard.’

Beyond that, many OVE singular concord sentences do not require an expletive at all:

39. a. Josh and me is going for a walk. ‘Josh and I are going for a walk.’

Therefore, we cannot fully extend Mohammad’s (1989) null expletive hypothesis for

Arabic non-standard agreement to OVE and say that a null expletive fills the subject

position in SPEC/AGRSP. However, we can say that for OVE singular concord, the subject

may not be in SPEC/AGRSP, since this is where nominative case is checked and OVE

singular concord is impossible with overtly nominative subjects. To obtain more detail we

must move on to an English dialect with SVO word order.

5.2 OVE Singular Concord and Henry’s Treatment of BE Singular Concord

Henry’s configurational account of BE singular concord is quite well-supported by

the facts of that dialect: placing the singular concord subject in SPEC/TenseP and having

Tense optionally check for ‘default’ (accusative) case predicts that this construction is

available to all verbs in all tenses, and the impossibility of overtly nominative subjects is

explained without needing a null expletive in AGRSP as in Arabic non-standard agreement

(Henry, 1995). Henry’s treatment of BE also accounts for the BE singular concord

restrictions on singular pronouns as subject, and on polar questions and adverb position

(when singular concord occurs with a raising verb) (Henry 1995).

Applied directly to OVE singular concord, this analysis would explain the

impossibility of singular concord with overtly nominative subjects: if the subject remains in

SPEC/TP, which in this analysis is the only way the ‘default’ agreement can be produced,

then the subject cannot be checked for nominative case, resulting in singular concord.

Using Henry’s treatment of BE singular concord would also correctly predict the

verb appearing to have 3sg agreement, since in Henry’s account of BE, 3sg verb agreement

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is considered to be the ‘default’ agreement that occurs when the subject is not checked for

nominative case.

However, this analysis would not account for the fact that OVE singular concord

can occur with a 2sg subject, since BE singular concord cannot occur with any singular

pronouns as subjects. And Henry’s analysis does not explain why BE singular concord

cannot occur with singular pronouns as subjects even when they are not marked for

nominative case, so it would not be able to explain this for OVE either. Nor would Henry’s

treatment of BE predict OVE’s acceptability with polar questions, since BE singular

concord does not allow this. Neither would it account for OVE singular concord only

occurring with finite be, since BE singular concord can occur with all lexical verbs.

5.3 An Account of OVE Singular Concord

Since neither the Arabic explanation nor the Belfast English explanation can fully

account for the facts of OVE singular concord, something more is required. OVE singular

concord patterns with other varieties of singular concord in that the verb is always in what

seems like 3sg agreement, can occur across tenses, in wh-questions, and in both active and

passive sentences, and cannot occur with overtly nominative or the 1sg and 3sg pronouns as

subjects. OVE differs from other varieties of singular concord in that it only occurs with

be, and it can occur with the 2sg subject. It differs from BE singular concord specifically in

that it allows for polar questions.

The evidence from OVE tells us several things. First, there is no single, canonical form

of singular concord across dialects of English. The fact that OVE singular concord’s

productivity is limited to be while other dialects allow it to occur with all verbs

demonstrates this very well. Secondly, in OVE and in other dialects like BE, the

phenomenon is case-related; the fact that OVE and BE singular concord unequivocally do

not occur with overtly nominative subjects makes this clear. Thirdly, OVE singular

concord involves a different mechanism for case-licensing than does standard agreement;

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this is evidenced by the fact that singular concord verb agreement is the ‘default’ agreement

and that subjects may not be overtly nominative.

For OVE singular concord, we can apply Mohammad’s treatment of Arabic to a certain

extent, taking from Mohammad the idea that the subject is not in its standard agreement

position of AGRSP. This is supported by the fact that OVE singular concord occurs with a)

the verb agreement in its ‘default’ setting of 3sg, and b) the subjects in ‘default’ accusative

case. These facts suggest that there is something about the OVE singular concord subject

that keeps it from checking its features with the verb to get agreement, and from checking

for nominative case, which is done by the subject’s moving to the AGRSP position.

We can also apply Henry’s treatment of BE to OVE singular concord, but again only to

a certain extent: placing the singular concord subject in SPEC/TP and allowing Tense to

check for ‘default’ (accusative) case would explain where the singular concord subject is

located, and why singular concord sentences do not allow for overtly nominative subjects –

since Tense can only check for default case. Since the agreement is now set to ‘default,’

this also explains the reason the verb is in its ‘default’ (3sg) agreement form.

To explain OVE singular concord’s restrictions on 1sg and 3sg subjects, its restriction

to be only, and the acceptability of the 2sg subject and polar questions, we must look at

OVE singular concord from a slightly different perspective than has been previously done.

In OVE, singular concord cannot be employed with NPs, single or conjoined, where

there is overt nominative marking. Thus the following sentences are ungrammatical:

40. a. *They is cleaning the stables. ‘They are cleaning the stables.’ b. *George and I was fishing. ‘George and I were fishing.’

Conversely, subjects that are not marked for nominative are perfectly acceptable. This

includes accusative-marked, and ambiguous NPs:

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41. a. Them is cleaning the stables. ‘They are cleaning the stables.’ b. George and me was fishing. ‘George and I were fishing.’ c. The horses is in the field. ‘The horses are in the field.’

This failure of singular concord to occur with overtly nominative-marked subjects

shows that singular concord constructions do not afford nominative case licensing, as

previously discussed. In her account of Belfast English, Henry argues that this is because

subject NPs in singular concord constructions are simply licensed in a different place than

they would be in standard agreement constructions – SPEC/TP for the former and

SPEC/AGRSP for the latter (Henry, 1995). However, this does not explain why the only

verb with which singular concord is possible in OVE is finite be, which is unusual

compared to other dialects with singular concord (Mohammad, 1989; Henry, 1995; Hickey,

2007; Millar, 2007). So, in addition to Henry’s analysis, what else might account for both

the lack of nominative subjects and the restriction to be in OVE? There must be something

about be in OVE that makes it different from other lexical verbs, and enables it to afford

this special kind of case licensing.

One possible explanation is to look at the singular concord be from the perspective

of feature content; in some theories it is thought that features may license case (Adger &

Smith, 2005). Adger and Smith’s (2005) framework supposes that lexical items are

composed of features, similar to the way that phonemes may be. They assume that

syntactic features may come in two different types: 1) those with a semantic interpretation,

and 2) those that are syntactic (Adger & Smith, 2005). The second type includes case on a

noun, such as nominative or accusative, as well as agreement marking on a verb, such as

third singular (Adger & Smith, 2005). In this framework, the first type of features are said

to be interpretable and the second type are said to be uninterpretable (2005).

Uninterpretable features (i.e. case, person, and verb agreement marking) must be checked

by a matching feature, which can be interpretable or uninterpretable, for example, the

following is from Adger & Smith (2005):

25

42. a. They bark.

In this sentence we have Tense (henceforth T) which comes with an interpretable feature,

[tense:pres], and three uninterpretable features, [ucase:nom], [upers:], and [unum:]. We also

have they, which for now we will call pronoun, which comes with [num:pl], [pers:-]3, and

[ucase:]. There is also bark, which is just [V]. The case feature of pronoun is unvalued,

and so are the person and number features on T. Bark and pronoun both begin in VP, and

T is the head of TP. There will be a checking relation between T and pronoun when

pronoun moves to the SPEC/TP position. Because of this relation, T’s unvalued number

feature becomes [num:pl] and the person feature becomes [pers:-] thanks to pronoun, and

pronoun’s unvalued case feature becomes nominative thanks to T. The resulting surface

form is sentence 32. Let us look at an OVE standard agreement sentence and compare it to

an OVE singular concord sentence:

43. a. They are hungry.

b. Them is hungry. ‘They are hungry.’

In 33a we have T, they, and hungry. The features of hungry are not relevant for the

purposes of this analysis, and so we will move on to T and they. If we use the Adger &

Smith example as a template, they should have [ucase:, pers:-, num:pl], and should instead

be called pronoun. T should have [tense:pres, ucase:nom, upers:, unum:]. The result is that

pronoun will get nominative case from T, and T will get number and person specifications

from pronoun, and the sentence will appear in spell-out as 33a.

The singular concord version is much more interesting: given the OVE evidence, it

appears that OVE singular concord be has different features from standard agreement be.

Singular concord be, which we will call Aux (for auxiliary), should look like this in the

present tense: [tense:pres, unum:pl]. Then, as in 33b, we combine it with pronoun, which

3 Adger and Smith (2005) assume that pronouns bear interpretable person and number features. First and second person features are [pers:+] and third person is [pers:-], treating third person as a lack of positive identification for person. [pers:1] is first person and [pers:2] is second person.

26

has [ucase:, pers:-, num:pl]. Since there is no case specified, the only way for pronoun to

appear in spell-out is in default case, which is the accusative in English. Since there is no

person feature in Aux, verb agreement will default to third person in spell-out. Its number

feature means that it can only occur with plural NPs, otherwise there will be no spell-out.

To explain OVE singular concord’s acceptability with the 2sg pronoun you, we will say

that its features are [ucase:, pers:2, num:unspecified], since it can be used as both 2sg and

2pl. In this way, it is syntactically interpreted by Aux as acceptable and spell-out can be

achieved.4 Because standard agreement be and Aux have the same interpretable features,

their semantic content remains the same, but their spell-out differs due to the effects of their

uninterpretable features. To explain OVE’s acceptability with polar questions, we can just

say that the features are strong enough in singular concord, as they are in standard

agreement, to make the move to C0 just like wh-questions can do. OVE singular concord

would not work for other verbs because they are lexical verbs with lexical feature content,

while be is not.

In summary, by defining singular concord be as having different uninterpretable

features than standard agreement be we can explain how singular concord can occur in

OVE and still have the same meaning as standard agreement be. This way there is no need

to explain why singular exists only for be; in this scenario lexical verbs have different

feature content than does singular concord be. In this interpretation polar questions do not

pose a problem, and the unacceptability of the 1sg and 3sg pronouns as subjects is

explained. This treatment also explains why in OVE the pronoun you is considered

acceptable as a subject of singular concord, since in OVE this pronoun is not specified in

terms of number.

6. Conclusions and Future Research

OVE singular concord occurs, like other varieties, with the ‘default’ verb

agreement, which looks like 3sg. OVE singular concord occurs with only be in all its

4 We might also hypothesize that the 2sg pronoun, though semantically singular, is interpreted syntactically as being plural, in which case it would still be able to be a subject in a singular concord construction.

27

usages and across tenses, and allows only for subjects that are not overtly marked for

nominative case, and does not allow the 1sg or 3sg pronoun as subjects regardless of case

marking. OVE singular concord is acceptable in active and passive voice, and in polar and

wh-questions, and is unacceptable when there is an adverb between the subject and the

verb.

To account for these facts, we have borrowed from Mohammad’s (1989) treatment

of non-standard verbal agreement in Arabic to say that the subject of singular concord in

OVE does not appear to be in the same position as standard agreement subjects – that is, it

cannot be in a position to be checked for nominative case. We have also borrowed from

Henry’s (1995) treatment of BE singular concord to say that the OVE singular concord

subject can only be checked for ‘default’ (accusative) case, and that the verb, therefore, can

only have ‘default’ 3sg agreement. Finally, Adger and Smith’s (2010) feature content

framework was used to explain the underspecified features of the OVE singular concord be

as compared to standard agreement be, which accounts for OVE singular concord’s

characteristics in terms of nominative subject restrictions, lexical verb restrictions, and the

acceptability of the 2sg subject and unacceptability of the 1 and 3sg subject.

The facts of OVE singular concord can tell us a great deal about the nature of the

phenomenon in OVE itself as well as in other languages and English dialects. It is clear

from OVE that the singular concord phenomenon can take many different forms in many

different languages; there is no canonical form of singular concord that exists across

languages – or even across English dialects, despite their having evolved from the same

beginnings. Indeed, it would seem that there is a whole family of singular concord

phenomena, each unique to its own language and dialect.

There are many questions left unanswered by the limitations of this paper, including

more details about the feature content of other verbs and pronouns in OVE. There is also

the question of the nature of singular concord as a family of syntactic phenomena, and the

nature of singular concord in other English dialects. Finally, there are many other syntactic

phenomena that exist in OVE, such as historical present, which have not be explored at all

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in this paper and which may be able to shed some light on the singular concord

phenomenon as it occurs in OVE and in other dialects of English.

Ottawa Valley English is a rich dialect, and the study of Canadian English,

Englishes around the world, and Linguistics as a discipline would benefit greatly from

further research into the morphology and syntax of Ottawa Valley English. A full account

of OVE morphosyntax cannot be accomplished in a single paper, and there remains a great

deal left to be studied.

7. Acknowledgements

Many hours and resources went into the making of this paper, and I would

especially like to thank Dr. Charlotte Reinholtz for supervising my research, Prof. Hitay

Yükseker for her advice, Dr. Anastasia Riehl for granting me access to the resources of the

Strathy Language Unit, the Queen’s University Archives for making the Joan Finnigan

fonds accessible to me, and all my language consultants for providing me with invaluable

data.

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8. References

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Roberts, I., & Rousseau, A. (2003). Syntactic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woods, H. (1979). The Ottawa Survey of Canadian English. Strathy Language Unit Occasional Papers, 4. Queen’s University: Kingston.